Posts Tagged smartphones

My seniors were supposed to have a printed draft of an essay in class today. Right. Anyway, I had a peer review activity for those who were prepared, and I told those who weren’t to simply work on their essays however they could until we could get down to the computer lab for the second half of class.

Most of the unprepared students wasted that time, but a few who had smartphones did not.

That’s a girl typing on GoogleDocs with her phone.

I understand why those without a smartphone chose to do nothing. They all already had a draft or a partial draft on GoogleDocs, so trying to write out a concluding paragraph on paper, for example, would probably be a waste of time anyway.

I love how proud some kids of are of this, too. While giving some instruction to the group, I asked one kid, “Do you need to have your phone out?” He got that very defensive and pride-filled tone in his voice when answering, “Yeah, I’m typing my essay! I actually am! Look!” And when I rolled by his desk a little later he made me stop to look at how much he had typed on his phone.

And then, in talking about this with a group of them, several students made a point of showing me their antiquated, non-smart phones. So it’s not like this is something a teacher can count on all kids being able to do. But for those who can, I think it’s a great option.

Also, my own phone didn’t have enough battery at this point in the day, so I couldn’t take a photo of that girl typing. But, luckily, her neighbor had a nice phone and promptly emailed me the photo he took.